"All of a sudden I heard the power lines started to crackle, and I heard numerous loud explosions," resident Ken Meek said.

The electricity went out for about five minutes and then came back on, but residents said in that short time, a lot of damage was done.

"My computer was fried," Almony said.

"My furnace burned up. The hot water heater was a total loss, the steam shower burned up, as did the attic fans and doorbell," Meek said.

Meeks contacted Baltimore Gas & Electric. They sent him an email saying a broken cross arm had fallen onto their 33,000-volt overhead conductor, causing brief outages, and that while they regret his loss, BGE is not liable under those circumstances.

"Refer them back to their homeowners insurance policy after we investigate and if we found that it wasn't something that was caused by BGE, in and of ourselves, when it comes to neglect," BGE spokesman Rob Gould said.

"I disagree with that, because now we're responsible for all the premiums on the insurance, the insurance going up, and deductibles," Meek said.

Meek said his damage is costing about $6,000.

Gould said the company has only heard from about eight customers with similar complaints on that day, but Meeks said a BGE customer service representative told him that hundreds of people were affected.

BGE said it will continue to investigate, which will take five to 10 business days to complete. The company also suggests customers buy quality surge protection equipment.

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